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Netanyahu to Biden: We Don't Need America

If you had any doubt the recent actions by Isreal were a slap in the face the Obama administration put them aside.

Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Israel last week was widely hailed as a catastrophe-but not because of settlements. After a tense year in which Washington had failed to stop Prime Minister Benyamin "Bibi" Netanyahu from settling more occupied land, Biden had come to shore up the relationship. Instead, officials in Netanyahu's government caught both men off guard by announcing plans to build more in contested East Jerusalem. True, that was a snafu. But the real disaster was what it may cost Israel.

According to Newsweek Israel didn't just spit in Joe Biden's face last week. It jeopardized America's willingness to protect it from Iran.

So why aren't we buddies anymore. Answer: Obama. America is moving left as Israel is moving right. Obama's grand design for a new, peaceful, and pro-American Middle East (featuring a new Palestinian state) stood in stark contrast to Netanyahu's long-held support for Israel's control of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The Isreali ambassador in Washington called the crisis "the worst in American-Israeli relations since 1975," when then–secretary of state Henry Kissinger announced a "reassessment" of the relationship. And even Netanyahu's key coalition member from the center-left, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, backed the prime minister, securing the prime minister's political position at home.